XiaolinMama

What is normal anyway?

Much like the amazing women in Beth Feldman's book "See Mom Run", I can't help but laugh at the follies that make up my "normal life".  I laugh even harder when I think about what I thought was "normal" pre-children. 

The holidays make me crazy.  Yes, in the my book, there is nothing that puts me on edge more than te monthlong preparation for the Christmas festivities.  It is enough to bring any strong woman to tears. Due a variety of factors (economy and the swine flu - a whole 'nutha story), I said NO to the madness this year.  I said NO to a week long trip to spend the holiday with my extended family. We said NO to extravagant gifts and I said YES to gift cards, when I usually pride myself on making handmade gifts.  We had a quiet holiday.  We spent time as a small family together.  We played board games, watched movies and rode our bikes around the neighborhood.  We had 5 blissful family days together.It was great, until I realized we had to fill in 6 more days of winter break with activities.  I own my own business ( three actually), so I was not on a "real vacation", but "working from home".  sigh.  I plied the kids through the week with "movie rentals", "arts and crafts" and "extra" video game playing time".  It rained in Northern California, ensuring that kids were forced to stay inside.  (Just what  a work-from home mom needed) 

With 48 hours left, I  started to pat myself on the back for making it through the two weeks.  I started planning what to buy at the grocery store for the following week's lunch.  I referred to my calendar thinking about when I would schedule a manicure to treat myself.   I started to do the Happy Dance because soon life would go back to normal.  The kids would be in school soon and I could work guilt free for 8 hours a day!   Woot! Woot!

I then looked at my sweet daughter and noticed that she was napping; strange for my 6YO in the middle of the day.  Oh, is that green goop around her eye?  Frick, she has pink eye!   She is going to miss the first day back to school?  We were so close to getting back to "normal"!  What is normal anyway? Life has been in flux ever since I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant over a decade ago.  Sigh.

We spent half the next day at the doctor's office and pharmacy, we squeezed in a trip to the grocery store to buy orange juice and set up the "sick room".   Welcome to parenthood - and my new sense of normal.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Soccer Lessons

I have written several times about the trials and tribulations of being a soccer mom.  There have been times I have been frustrated by overbearing parents and bad referees.  I have gushed over my six year old daughter's first goal and lamented whether traveling all over Northern California for tournaments is a "good thing" for my ten year old.  I've wondered what it all has it really taught my kids, aside from the fact that a 7-11 slurppy cures most field injuries. 

This week my son surprised me.  His team has struggled all season, winning some and losing some. They are good, but not good enough to win a regional tournament or so I thought. I have watched my son grow from being the youngest and most inexperienced  on the team to one of the leaders and key to their success. He is confident on the field, agressive when needed and understands the "game" of soccer.  This weekend we had a family trip planned to go to Disneyland with a  gaggle of bloggers.  Well of course, his team is headed to the soccer championships. 

I think most kids would have left thier team high and dry given the choice between riding on Space Mountain and a soccer game in Manteca, CA.  He chose the team.  He shyly told me that while he wanted more than anything to go to the Magic Kingdom, but he thought the team would lose without him.  He acknowledged he was a leader and had a responsibility to stay with the team and help them win it all.  Whoa- big concepts for a lil' guy.  Maybe all this driving and practice is worth all the gas money!

Disneyland Memories 2009

More stories at Disneyland Resort

Powered by Whrrl

This past weekend, my family and I had the opportunity to join mom bloggers at the Disneyland Resort. It was  a great trip filled with the stuff lifelong memories are made of. Click on over to Xiaolinmama Reviews

for the entire story.  Full disclosure: Disneyland Resort paid for the trip, lodging and all admission fees.  Thank you Disney! 

A Six Year Olds Thoughts on Losing A Tooth

Full of sass, my dear little one, shares her thoughts in losing her second tooth.
I am gonna be in trouble when this one is older. 

Day 1: Gratitude Challenge

Life has been crazy lately.  We are in the home stretch of summer vacation with the kids and have done NO school shopping.  We are still without health care and with the economy in the tanker, everything is just a bit tenuous and stessful.  BUT being worried about that stuff is not how I want to live my life.  Our situation could be WAY worse.   

Today I signed the Gratitude Pledge as part of taking on the Tiny Prints' Gratitude Challenge.  I normally wouldn't sign up for something that asked me to blog 21 days in a row (ugh!), but given the chaos lately I need something/someone to force me to slow down and appreciate the silver lining.  So thanks Tiny Prints and Laptop Television Mom for inspiring me to take note of the great things around me - family, friends and experiences. I am looking forward to the adventure.

To start me off, the family and I went to the circus this week.  We had a ball and it had been a while since we had done a family outing not involving soccer or dance.   I am grateful for the time together and no kids fighting.  Most importantly, I am awed by getting to experience their delight in watching something new and out of the ordinary for the first time.   Priceless.  Read my review at Xiaolin Mama Reviews.
 

Since when is an ear infection a pre-existing condition?

I had the opportunity to meet the amazing Valerie Jarrett, Advisor to President Obama, while at BlogHer earlier this month.  The 10 bloggers, including my lovely MOMocrats or so in the private session were all verklempt listening to stories about health care nightmares (I was crying like baby) and gave input on what needed to be done to take the message to back to our home towns and blogs.  I left inspired to do more, but wasn't quite sure until I chatted with the fine folks at People Acting in Community Together. 

Yesterday my kids and I had the opportunity to give testimony on health insurance reform at a rally outside Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren's office.  About 175 clergy and community leaders gathered to add our stories to the health care insurance reform debate.   Representative Lofgren spoke briefly and complimented the group on the peaceful demonstration.  She relayed that the night before she had attended a meeting expecting 40 people.  Instead she was greeted by more than 300 rowdy protesters, and most were not ready to debate civilly. Oy vey! 

This afternoon's gathering was hosted by a Rabbi, blessing shared by a Baptist minister and the crowd sang, "This little light of mine".  It was a far cry from the events seen all over the news featuring town halls shut down by angry protestors.  I was proud to be amongst this group of smart and compassionate people. 

When my friends asked me to speak last week, I did not hesitate to volunteer.  But as I watched the news and read online accounts of what was happening at rallies around the country, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into.  Moreover, when the head organizer mentioned that agitators were seen at other rallies around the country and that a large group off Teabaggers assembled at an event the night before I began to worry about what I had gotten my kids involved with.   But as I stood in a circle surrounded by preachers, community activists and friends, I knew there was no other place I would rather have been.

Valerie Jarrett challenged us to take to streets and get our stories told. I did just that and so have many others. Now it is up to us all to make sure our elected officials stand up too and roll up their sleeves to get it done.  We need access to affordable health are. My kids can't wait.

Empty Nest

The kids are gone. Visiting the grandparents for two whole weeks, I should be really excited. I finished the report I was working on and slept in. I finished packing for BlogHer in record time and even had time for a pedicure. But instead of reveling in my new found freedom, I am kinda missing them already.  (I am such a sap!)  Been gone 36 hours and I have called twice - gah!

I am off to the BlogHer Conference tomorrow morning. Check out my tweets @xiaolinmama to hear about what is going on in Chi-Town.

San Jose Family Camp

Summer isn't quite the same without a trip to San Jose Family Camp, where the cooking is done for you and all I worry about is what to bring for happy hour.  Just outside of Yosemite, the camp has everything you need for a stress free low cost vacation.  The kids and I played shuffle board, tried our hands at archery, hiked and spent most of the time floating on the creek. 

Highlights this year:

• Organic bug spray- stinks!  I need the deet filled stuff.
• Pomagranate margaritas always hit the spot.
• Must buy bigger inner-tubes for floating down the river- bruises on buttocks not pretty
• Finish all work before you go- looking for WIFI sucks.
• One adult with five kids and two fishing rods - not a good idea.
• Fun to go with families with younger kids, reminded me of just how much mine have grown-sigh.

My Summer Camp Woes go National on CNN

Today CNN highlighted my challenges with planning for summer camp - aack!  Check it out here.  Well not really, so far summer vacay old school style has been great actually.  Day 3 and I have not hurt any children yet. I got the kids enrolled in a two week swim lesson and even bought a Costco sized box of hot dogs and stocked up on Crystal Light Lemonade (their collective new favorite!) ready for feeding the multitudes of kids that seem to have moved in.  I had two conference calls, worked on a report and event cleaned out the basement!

Whew - now back to eating bon bons!

Crystal Light's Water Way Challenge

The fine ladies at Blog Her and Crystal Light offered me a fun opportunity to take on a challenge to drink more water and lose some weight.  Now seeing that bathing suit season has officially begun, how could I pass that up?  Check out my new review blog where I will be putting up daily posts about how it is going.  So courtesy of Crystal Light, I’m taking the Water Way Challenge. Join me and other bloggers at the  BlogHer site to hear how we are doing.

Also today is the last day of school or first day of summer vacation for the kids - aack!
This is what we did today...

 A s part of my on going participation in the Crystal Light Water Way Challenge, this afternoon's exciting activity was taste testing Crystal Light's Lemonade versus making lemonade from real lemons. 

Making Real Lemonade

1. Convince kids to get lemons from neighbors' tree
2. Yell at kids for throwing lemons at each other
3. Gather supplies - sugar, water, pitcher, ice
4. Attempt to wash lemons
5. Yell at kids for splashing each other as they washed lemons (see a trend here?)
6. Squeeze lemons
7. Remove pits
8. Add water and sugar
9. taste
10. Add more sugar
11. taste
12. Add more sugar (Marvel and how much sugar kids want in their lemonade)
13. Add ice
14. Pour into glasses

Time to prepare: 1 hour (including time to visit with neighbors)

Make Crystal Light

1. Get pitcher
2. Add water
3. Open packet of crystal light
4. Mix
5. Add ice
6. Pour

Time to prepare: 5 minutes

The judges were my 6YO daughter and my 9YO son. I was also a judge - the one with the most votes.

The winner of the taste test was...drum roll please...
based on taste alone - real lemonade
based on time to make - Crystal Light
based on clean up time and having to break up battles - Crystal Light
based on whether it was the stuff of making summer memories - real lemonade

I was surprised to note just how much sugar we put into home made lemonade.  Yikes!  No wonder it was SO good - duh!  Thank goodness Crystal Light has only 5 calories per serving. We had a ball doing the taste test - but it is clear if looking for ease and good flavor, you can't go wrong with a pitcher of Crystal Light.  It is not as exciting as pummeling your brother with lemons, but does the job done for wetting your whistle quickly!  Real Lemonade will always have special place in my heart - but we'll have to figure out a better way to make it with WAY less sugar.